Monthly Archives: June 2013

I’m a firm believer that most things happen for a reason. It’s just a matter of interpretation.

I came to this belief when I was in my mid-twenties. Having worked in the pet industry for several years, I decided that I wanted to open my own pet store.

The thought was alluring. I’d be my own boss. I could select the products I wanted to sell and spend the day happily immersed with helping people with their pets. I found a location that would suit me well. It was a small space in the middle of a huge shopping plaza. As I sat there in the parking lot, watching people go in and out of the various stores, I was delighted. This could really work for me.

I found suppliers who would sell me the products I wanted. I devised an ordering system, planned out the store aisle by aisle, and began working on my business plan. The only thing left to do was find funding.

As things turned out, finding investors was nearly impossible. No one wanted to loan a twenty-five year old woman the amount of money it would take to get started. After several months of searching, I finally was forced to give up. It was the worst moment of my life. All my hopes and dreams vanished in an instant. I turned away from my dream with tears in my eyes and went to work for someone else. Then six months later, I saw the reason for the failed attempt.

The anchor store for the plaza went out of business. One by one, all the cute little stores flanking it closed their doors as well. A year later, the plaza was nothing more than a ghost town. Had I opened a store, I would have been among them, losing everything I had and everything I worked for.

It took several years before I realized that opening my store really wasn’t my destiny. Something inside me struggled to get out. I began staring at blank pages in my typewriter, watching as they filled up word by word with stories. It didn’t take long before the words became a book, then two books, then three. I was an author!

Getting my books out to the masses was another obstacle. After being turned down by countless literary agencies, I realized that it wasn’t my time. I needed to live more, experience more, before I could truly be the writer I wanted to be. I finally decided to self-publish and the results have been incredible. I’m not a best-selling author with my books in major chains, but people are actually reading – and loving – my work. Had I reached my first dream, none of this would have happened.

Now, when something bad happens to me, I shake it off because I know that something better (or different) needs to happen to me instead. If nothing else, it makes life easier, makes the bad things feel like opportunities to find good things. I just try to listen to what the universe is telling me.

It’s all in the way you look at it.

It’s just a matter of interpretation.

Joni Mayhan

Author of The Angels of Ember Trilogy- available on Amazon.com for Kindle or in paperback

People who know I’m a paranormal investigator often ask me if I have any ghost hunts coming up. What they don’t understand is ghosts are a part of my everyday existence.

I feel them drift into rooms when I am alone.

They approach me in restaurants, moving to my table as if drawn to my energy.

They hover above my bed at night while I sleep.

I am what they call a sensitive.

Sensitives come in many different varies. Some people simply know when a spirit comes into a room. Others get a physical cue, like cold chills or a tingling feeling. People like me actually hear them. I am clairaudient.
This ability started in childhood. I would hear a tone in my ear, similar to an ear-ringing sound. The tone would be accompanied by a sense that I wasn’t alone, that feeling you get when someone walks silently into a room and stands there watching you. It developed during my adolescence and I came to understand that there was a lot more going on in the world around me that I couldn’t see.

The prospects were terrifying, especially back in the late 80’s when paranormal shows and information weren’t so prevalent. I kept this knowledge to myself, trying to explain it, trying to compartmentalize it in a way that would allow me to live my life. I managed to delude myself for a number of years, explaining it away as simple tinnitus, but it wasn’t something I could ignore for long.

I began to hear different tones. They would grow stronger as I approached them, and become softer when I left. I found that the tone was louder near certain houses and cemeteries. When the tone was the strongest, I often felt soft touches that couldn’t be explained, and found my cats watching the same area I was hearing the sound emit from. Several years ago, I decided to embrace it instead of being fearful of it. That was when everything changed.
Like any muscle that is exercised, my abilities grew stronger and clearer. On paranormal investigations, I knew when a spirit drifted into the room. At first, it was great. I began getting amazing evidence. Ghosts began talking to me. They spoke full sentences into my digital voice recorder, telling me their names, their messages, making comments about the activities surrounding them. I thought it was a blessing. I was thrilled. I was actually speaking to the dead, getting answers to those life-long questions. What happens to us after we die?
They told me that Heaven is beautiful. Some were trapped, some stayed because they wanted to watch over family members, and some simply thought we were annoying and wanted us to go away. Then, it took a serious turn. They started following me home.

That changed things very quickly.
There is nothing more fearful than having an unknown entity hovering over you as you consider closing your eyes. I became the child with a monster under the bed, with no one to call for help. I was alone in my house. I’d have to deal with it myself.

In the beginning, I reached out to several of my psychic friends. They would use their abilities to remove the spirit, confirming my worst fear. Yes, there was something there. I could no longer blame it on tinnitus. It was real and it was following me everywhere I went.